Acute renal failure (ARF), also recently known as acute kidney injury (AKI), is a syndrome with high mortality and morbidity, for which there is no specific therapy except supportive care (5; 17). There is an urgent need to develop effective therapeutics for ARF. Histologically, ischemic ARF is characterized by acute tubular necrosis, however a major limitation in approaching the disease is the lack of clinically feasible diagnostics for early detection of ischemic ARF, such as the use of serum troponin and creatine phosphokinase (CPK) for myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) (4). Recent studies have identified proteins including KIM-1, lipocalin, IL-18, NHE3, actin, and retinol binding protein among others as potential biomarker candidates in ischemic ARF (13). However, none of them have been fully validated or are in routine clinical use. There remains a strong need for discovery and validation of additional candidate markers, in particular for early detection (1).